Khmer Evening News

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Party Frustrations Reflected in Complaints

Non-ruling party officials lodged a number of complaints
across Cambodia
Monday that reflected a variety of irregularities in Sunday's polls.

In at least five provinces, the complaints included voter
intimidation, vote-buying and the omission of names from voting registries.

Parties had until 11:30 am Monday to file Election Day
complaints.

Hang Puthea, executive director of the Neutral and Impartial
Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, said that despite the
complaints, the number of irregularities had declined from past elections.

The first complaint was made for Kohdach commune, Mul Kampul
district, where village chiefs allegedly intimidated voters by claiming
"those who have taken money from the CPP must vote CPP," said Chan
Cheng, SRP lawmaker for Kandal province.

The opposition party filed two more complaints for Chey Thom
and Ta Ek communes, Kasek Kandal district, where SRP observers saw CPP village
chiefs providing a 1018 form to CPP supporters whose names were on the registry
but who did not have identification to vote, Chan Cheng said.

The 1018 is a standard administrative form used to identify
residents of villages who have lost their ID cards, but the National Election
Committee has said they are not a valid form of identification for voting.

Officials from at least four different parties across five
other provinces complained of similar irregularities, and in some cases they
declared the vote count was invalid.

The Sam Rainsy and Norodom Ranariddh parties filed
complaints with commune election committees over the omission of voter names in
Kampot province, where the Norodom Ranariddh Party filed a complaint against a
provincial election committee official who allowed supporters wearing CPP
shirts to vote and the Sam Rainsy Party filed a complaint against
irregularities in O'Chouk district.

In Pailin, a commune election committee denied receipt of
complaints from the Sam Rainsy Party, saying party members had missed the
deadline. Officials said they would file to provincial officials.